ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTIONMarch 27, 2006Senator bucks colleagues on illegals legislation WASHINGTON — Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia is all for locking down the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants. And most of the state's congressional delegation is with him on that. But as the Senate Judiciary Committee tries today to reach consensus on creating a guest worker program, Chambliss stands apart from many of his Georgia colleagues. The Republican chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee comes from Moultrie, deep in the South Georgia farm belt. And while Georgia's other senator, Johnny Isakson, insists that the borders must be secure before any guest worker program is created, Chambliss is proposing to make it easier for U.S. farmers to legally bring in Mexican immigrants to work their fields. Chambliss also wants to grant illegal immigrants already living in the United States temporary legal status, and a chance to become U.S. citizens, if they help bring in the harvest. His struggle to convince even his closest associates that there are economic benefits to accommodating, rather than shutting out, illegal immigrants is prologue to a broader, election-year debate. The discussion is expected to dominate the Senate this week if the Judiciary Committee succeeds in reaching an agreement on a guest worker proposal today, meeting a deadline imposed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for producing an immigration reform bill. When President Bush forced Congress to confront the need for immigration reform and proposed a guest worker program last year, lawmakers' immediate response was to rebuff his proposal as too weak. Instead, the House passed a measure that would build fences along sections of the 2,000-mile border and punish any individuals or service groups that aided illegal immigrants — taking the debate in what Chambliss views as a regrettable direction. "It would be a mistake not to do overall immigration reform," Chambliss said in an interview last week. "If all you do is border security then our farmers' produce is going to be rotting in the fields." Though Chambliss generally is a party loyalist, bucking others in his own party in the name of helping farmers is nothing new. Before running for Congress in 1994, Chambliss was a lawyer specializing in agricultural issues. He served on the House Agriculture Committee for eight years and, after winning a Senate seat, was given control that chamber's Agriculture Committee last year. Chambliss has opposed Bush and other party members by refusing to endorse the elimination of subsidy payments to farmers, who he said are at a disadvantage in competing against foreign agricultural concerns that are getting their own government subsidies. As for his agricultural worker reform plan, the Republican-run Senate has already rejected it once. Isakson — whose voting record generally matches Chambliss' — was among the opponents who voted it down 77-21 after Chambliss offered it as a last-minute amendment to a supplemental budget bill last year. "It's not a matter of being against something somebody wants to do," Isakson said. "From the outset, my position has been — and will be — that border security is the first step in comprehensive immigration reform." Isakson had planned to introduce a bill that bundled border security with guest worker and legal-immigration reforms, but after touring the U.S.-Mexico border last month, he introduced only the border security measure, saying other reforms won't work until the border is secure. "He's like I am," Isakson said. "He's trying to be part of the debate, and in the end, I hope both of us are." None of the measures now in play in the Senate provides direct help to farmers, who say the current process for legally hiring immigrant farmworkers is so cumbersome and expensive that it encourages farmers to risk hiring illegal workers. "I'm for stopping illegal immigration," said Bill Brim, who chairs the immigration committee of Georgia's Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association and who has lobbied intensely in Washington for Chambliss' bill. "But doing border enforcement first is the wrong way to go," said Brim, who hires about 550 legal migrant workers a year for his Tifton area farm. "If we don't get [agricultural worker reform], it's going to put a lot of us out of business." Before he again offers his proposal this week, Chambliss faces the daunting task of reaching a compromise with Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), a member of the Senate agricultural appropriations subcommittee who introduced an agricultural worker bill that would make it much easier for illegal immigrants to gain legal status. Craig's bill has attracted a lot of Democratic support, but many Republicans — including Chambliss — vehemently oppose the provision on illegal immigrants, which they view as amnesty for an estimated 12 million lawbreakers. What's unclear is whether Chambliss will benefit from the major public relations campaign Bush launched last week, and will continue this week, for a guest worker program. "This could be a fractious debate, and I hope it's not," Bush said in a news conference. "Immigration is a very difficult issue for a lot of members. It's an emotional issue. "And it's one that, if not conducted properly, will send signals that I don't think will befit the nation's history and traditions."
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